


I will only marry someone with eyes the color of this stone…

by Pi (Rhea)



Category: Smallville
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-23
Updated: 2011-11-23
Packaged: 2017-10-26 11:16:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/282411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhea/pseuds/Pi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a child Lana makes a vow that she’ll only marry someone with eyes as green as the stone that killed her parents. Intended fairy tale structure. Pairing: Lana/Jason Teague and maybe Lex/Clark if you want to read it that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I will only marry someone with eyes the color of this stone…

**Author's Note:**

> I’m disregarding some timeline bits, mainly because I don’t remember everything, heck I had to go look up Whitney’s name, or else I’d have been calling him Kevin or something.

When Lana was young the fire from the sky took her parents. Lana had always been a smart girl, a good girl, and her mother had sung her to sleep every night stroking her raven black hair and telling her what a good, smart, loved girl she was. Lana had an Aunt named Nell who worked in a flower shop and always smelled like her wares, sweet and pungent, the yellow dust of stamens on her fingers and vases of flowers all over her apartment. When her parents were taken that day Lana had been staying with her Aunt at the flower shop. She was in her fairy princess dress because that was what she was. Lana’s father called her his princess and everyone treated her like an angel. She’d smiled and waved her wand for the nice woman who came to buy tulips, that’s when the fire came down. And so on that fateful day, like all fateful beginnings, her story started.

Lana was always a princess but after her parents were gone her castle was lonely. Her aunt sold her apartment and moved in. But the butter yellow house was gloomy and cold no matter how many flowers her Aunt brought in. Nell wasn’t her mother and Lana wouldn’t speak. Then one day, the anniversary of that first day, Nell gave her a beautiful necklace. It was a sliver string and upon it hung a single green gem.  
“It’s made from the meteor that killed your parents. So much bad came from those stones that now only the good is left. This will one day make you happy. Wear it and remember your parent’s love.” Nell told her and tied the necklace around her neck like a foretelling. From that day forward Lana wore the necklace. At night she would raise it up in front of her face, going cross-eyed to see it in the dark. It would glint and glow a pure and brilliant green no matter what the light was like. It could find light to sparkle against in the darkest of rooms. The second fateful night five years after that first anniversary of the rocks falling from the sky Lana woke from a dream of living happily as a princess in a castle with her parents. She woke to the stone glowing softly on her pillow, right before her eyes making her vision pure green. Some day, she swore to herself, someday I will marry a man with eyes as green as this stone. And then I will have my castle.

Lana met Whitney that year he was bigger than she and blond as the sun, or the corn that graced the stalks that day as she pedaled her way to school on her bright pink bike. He was several grades above her but, as the way was in Smallville you knew everyone by the end of the year. She liked him even then with barrettes in her hair and a sack lunch in her hand. He didn’t notice her until the last year of middle school. In eighth grade Lana grew two inches and learned to apply make up. It was just before graduation and she was walking home from school when a truck pulled up and he leaned out the window.  
“Hey, you’re Lana right? I’m going by your house, my mother wants to order flowers from Nell, you want a ride?” Lana was never sure if there ever was an order for flowers, but in a town like there’s no one bothered to tell children not to ride in the car with strangers, or they did but since you knew everybody, well.  
“I didn’t’ know you were old enough to drive.” Lana said climbing in.  
“Well, I am sixteen, and got a license because I helped out on a farm over the summer.” His smile was blinding white and Lana resolved to invite him in for tea, she liked tea particularly jasmine, the packaging was that right color green. Whitney’s eyes were blue and pale like the sheets on Nell’s bed or the sky on dim days where the clouds made things a whiter grey-blue. Lana fingered her necklace and Whitney smiled some more. That summer they started dating. Lana was one of the only girls in the freshman class who entered high school with a boyfriend, an upper classman at that. She made the cheerleading squad and was immediately popular just for having Whitney as a boyfriend. Dating the star Quarterback did that to a girl. She was the princess of the school and she wore her little pink sweaters because Whitney said they were pretty and curled her eyelashes every morning. For two years she was the darling of the school. She had her group of friends and was polite and nice to everyone. She knew her place and while his eyes were blue, his hair was blond as corn silk and he reminded her of the land around the town. He was home. Maybe she thought, maybe I was wrong, maybe Smallville is my castle. She fingered the stone and tried to forget her promise. In that second year there was a new boy. Lana had always known him. He was in her grade, tall and quiet and shy. They’d never spoken in middle school but he always smiled at her like sunshine. His hair was as dark as Whitney’s was blond but his eyes were blue as a summer sky. But his sweetness touched her and made her wonder. Things with Whitney were rocky then and Clark, for that was the boy’s name, was always there. Lana felt like Guinevere married to King Arthur but with an eye for a shining knight for that was what Clark was. He was always there and then gone dashing about as if upon a white horse. The next year Whitney left. He said he was doing it for them but Lana knew that wasn’t all. Whitney saw her face and knew the best he could give her was a reprieve. Lana hoped deep in her heart that distance would make the heart grow fonder and even deeper she knew it wasn’t so.

Lana didn’t cry when she heard the news. Not at first. She thought of being Queen of Smallville: the ruler of a connivance store remembering her glory days of high school. She thought about the life she wasn’t living and felt relieved. And then with guilty tears she cried. Clark was gentle with her and always near at hand. Lana didn’t look at him much but accepted his presence like one would a persistent and affectionate dog. She couldn’t tell him no. And eventually her tentative glances became something more. Clark was taller then Whitney and beside him she felt fragile. She was a princess and Clark her knight always there to protect her. He made her safe and her castle was a dingy loft in a barn that Clark’s father called his “Fortress” she thought it fitting. With gentle Clark and his helping hands she felt at peace. Clark had told her to move on, and he sounded like the future. His eyes were brilliant blue and she locked away the necklace burying her dream deep in the back of her closet under a pile of old socks and moth eaten sweaters. But Clark’s fortress was one of silence, and as close as she got to him he was always far away. He was always there for her but never when she wanted him to be. And over time she knew the castle was a fake one. She smiled at him when he held her hand, dwarfed by his side, but she knew it was a false sense of security so she went up to the real castle on the hill outside of town, because Clark’s friend was there and had offered to teach her to fight for herself.

Lex was Clark’s friend who lived in the sprawling Scottish castle. It was nothing like the castles in Lana’s dreams, to dark and drafty. It was sad place she thought, running delicate hands along the wood paneling as she followed his silk clad back to a high-ceilinged room that functioned as a gym. She returned there in the afternoon for a few weeks. She didn’t put on make up and tied her hair back messily with out thinking, but she wore tight black tank tops and pants that made his eyes linger a little longer than they should. He smiled at her like a shark and got her angry his soft and seductive voice talking about Clark and all his flaws. Lana knew Clark lied, and Lex shared her frustration. It wasn’t long before they had more to talk about. Lex was smooth and cold, but his eyes intensely thoughtful, grey like his cashmere sweaters and his head was smooth as a whale. His fingers drummed restless patterns on all his furniture and his lips never fully smiled, only quirked and stretched their scars making the off kilter look seem natural. But Lex was always waiting; always open, always there for her in the ways that Clark never would be. Lex listened and for the first time Lana wasn’t dependant on anyone else. She wasn’t tending Whitney caring for him like the wife she would be, or waiting always on Clark’s return hoping for once to hear the truth. No with Lex she did the talking. She would show up and whatever he was doing, he would simply stop and turn to her with quiet eyes and a blankly open face. She rarely saw Clark then, at school yes and when they went on dates but the space was wider and Lana knew it was over. Lex never tried anything and Lana wasn’t sure whether or not she wanted him to. His eyes were too bright and hungry and Clark was all they had in common but Lex made her feel like a better person. Lex made her a warrior princess, she could grab her life with her own to hands. With Lex the Talon was her castle, and they ruled together but she pulled the greater weight, Lex had his own lands to oversea. But it was a stilted marriage of interests and Lana couldn’t take to visiting Lex only to watch in the shadows as Clark and Lex laughed or fought. When Lana declared her interest in a school overseas Lex nodded knowingly and easily paid her way. She could almost see his mind factoring one loose variable out of his equation and she laughed with relief to step on a pain and leave her sad kingdom behind.

France was bigger and brighter and more different then she’d ever expected. She wasn’t a princess and nobody knew her. For the first time in her life Lana was free. She’d brought her necklace with her and started wearing it again. It glittered dazzlingly against her new Parisian clothes. She was turning to cross the street one day when she was nearly run over by a motorbike. When she finally blinked away the stars and glared up at the face blocking the sun and the hands reaching down to help her she found herself gazing at the greenest eyes she’d ever seen. His name was Jason and wasn’t safe because she didn’t know him, but he smiled bright like the sun and he made her laugh over a conciliatory coffee. He gave her his number and sped off with only a quick goodbye. When she called him a week later she did it with her fingers wrapped around the stone. And his hair was dusty blond, his face bright and open, his eyes hazel green and delighted at the every sight of her, his hands were strong and he told her about his football glory days. She laughed with him and smiled the next moment as his intellect when he quoted poetry to her. Lana had never forgotten her promise to her parents, to herself and while his eyes weren’t as brilliant as her necklace she’d always remember how they looked in that first moment and sometimes when the sun caught his face she’d see it again. It was enough. Lana wasn’t in Smallville anymore but she was still a princess and her guiding stone had finally led her home.


End file.
